Radical Islamists in the rugged desert region adjoining Israel have expanded into a security
vacuum created by the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and they have carried out assaults almost
daily on security forces and other targets.

Dozens of tanks and armored vehicles backed by attack helicopters were used in yesterday’s
operation near Sheikh Zuweid, a few miles from the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, security
sources said.

The army said nine militants had been arrested.

Since the army toppled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi on July 3, and especially since
security forces killed hundreds of Islamists in smashing protest camps in Cairo on Aug. 14, there
have been online calls from Islamist radicals for wider attacks on the state.

Egyptian memories of an Islamist insurgency in the 1990s were revived on Thursday when a suicide
bomber blew up a car bomb next to the interior minister’s convoy in Cairo.

A week ago, militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a ship passing through the Suez Canal
on the Sinai’s western edge.

Yesterday, a bomb exploded at a Cairo police station for the second time in less than a week,
state media said; no one was hurt.

In addition, explosives were found on the railway line between the cities of Suez and Ismailia
along the Suez Canal, but they were defused before detonating, according to the state news agency
MENA.

No one has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks. A video apparently showing the Suez
attack was posted on YouTube with an Islamist logo.

The army-backed rulers have incensed Islamists in Egypt and abroad with their violent crackdown
on Morsi’s movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, most of whose leaders have been arrested and accused
of terrorism.

The Brotherhood, sworn to peaceful resistance, dismisses the accusations as a pretext for the
crackdown by the regime, and it has defied the crackdown to bring thousands onto the streets across
Egypt three times in eight days.

The military-backed government also appears to be turning its sights on other groups who helped
topple Mubarak and hoped to establish an open civilian democracy in Egypt.